Erotic Romance with heart

Spanking A-Z Challenge, V: Vulnerability

Welcome back to the Spanking A-Z Challenge. Today’s letter is “V” for vulnerability.

There is a certain vulnerability in publishing your book. (Or at least that’s how I feel as a new author, anyway. 🙂 )

I am wavering right now between sheer excitement and total “Oh, Sh*t! I am really going to be out there, as in really. out. there!

I’m talking about the exciting fact that I finally sent in my running book for copy edits.

Last week, I was beyond ecstatic; like this big load had been lifted off my chest. This story- my first real story- (which I started over a year ago) was FINALLY finished!

Ready to be seen by others.

Ready to be reviewed and critiqued.

Oh God!

What have I done?!?

When I released The Winter Storm with my friends, Casey McKay and Renee Rose, it was easier to hide behind the group dynamic.

I didn’t have to worry about the reviews, because I knew that they were not personally directed at me, but rather, us as a group.

This was refreshing, and gave me a wonderful warm feeling of safety. (it also helped that the reviews were very good. Except for one reviewer that disliked the fact it was a book about spanking. 🙂 )

But I have finally realized, for this publication, I will be alone – subject to the scrutinizing eye of the seasoned reviewer.

I will feel vulnerable, and very, very naked.

(I don’t like feeling naked. LOL as much as I fantasize about a humiliating, semi public spanking, yeah, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’m not an exhibitionist.)

And writing is a form of exhibitionism, right?

But I have thought it through.

On one hand, it is going to be an amazing experience. I’ll get some great closure by finally finishing this story.

I’ll be able to cross it off, as my first published, solo book.

I’ll be able to much more easily move on to the other projects I have in mind. (As it turns out, my brain doesn’t like the idea of focusing on new material until it has gotten the closure it needs from the “finished product”. Hehe, if you have ever heard about my wreck of a sewing room, you will understand what I am talking about.)

So this means closure for me- in so many freaking cool ways!

But I will still have to prepare myself for the vulnerability that will come from being “out there” by myself.

I will most likely need to toughen up my skin, and learn to take constructive criticism without thinking of it as a personal attack.

And since I am inherently, a people pleaser, LOL, that will be a fun task. 😉

But I have always been a planner.

So in keeping with my need for contingencies (my husband calls it worrying. I call it being prepared 🙂 ), I have come up with possible scenarios.

1. Just in case, everyone in the world loves it, and I become the next JK Rowling, and make a gazillion dollars; my husband is being given permission to spank me quite soundly if I become a snob. 🙂

2. In case everyone in the whole wide world and other galaxies (including the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta quadrants) despise it; then I am paying my BFF to read my reviews and filter them to me. And my husband will still be given permission to spank me quite soundly if I whine too much about reviews.

3. In the case of anything between the above two brackets; I will take the opportunity to learn and grow, continuing to enjoy my time as an author. AND my husband will be given extra permission to spank me every day, quite soundly, because

well,

I will probably just need it. 🙂

So there it is.

I am about to release my new book, hopefully, next month.

As a solo author.

It is pretty special to me.

And it is about running 🙂

And even though I vary in extremes between how I feel, every day going into it, I think I will live through it.

Congratulations! I identity with all those emotions of vulnerability. Sometimes I want to run away from it all, other days, it’s more a case of get on with it, it’s a job.
Signing your petition… hope it helps with the nerves.

Thanks, Cara! It’s still tentatively titled “Running for her Life” since the main character is a competitive runner. But I am hoping my publisher can help come up with something a bit sexier. (I’m not very good at titleing, romantically. 🙂 )
I just had some great help, coming up with a logline. thanks for that link you shared, btw! 🙂

An Olympic hopeful struggling to let go of her past failures finds a no-nonsense coach willing to take her to the next level…but his unorthodox methods include taking her over his knee!

Congratulations on your first real, all by yourself book! I know exactly how you feel and I have that feeling every time I publish a new book. Will they like it? What if they don’t like it? And the questions just go on and on.
Add my name to your petition and I hope your husband spanks you as much as you need and deserve to be spanked!

That first solo is a big step. It will give you a big sense of accomplishment to see it “out there” and actually for sale. And since you’ll be too excited to sit down anyway, add my name to the petition.

I read this earlier but couldn’t get my comment to work! Congrats on the book. Please don’t forget me when you’re rich and famous and I think you should be spanked nightly – at least! Insert evil laugh here…

😉
Ok, I might have a little bit of an exhibition side, but haven’t felt comfortable using it yet. 🙂
I live vicariously through your tales.
Ooh, another Freudian slip. Tale as in tail / bottom?
hehe 🙂
thanks!
❤

Congratulations! An excellent post and so accurate. It takes real courage to take your book (particularly your first solo) and send it off to be read and critiqued. It is scary and a very vulnerable position. Which is why so many people never take the chance and actually send their book out to be read. Good for you! Can’t wait to read it.